Teaching Materials Science and Engineering through the Writing and Use of The World of Materials Essays
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Teaching Materials Science and Engineering through the Writing and Use of The World of Materials Essays. P. R. Howell. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, PA 16802. University Park, PA 16802, USA ABSTRACT The author has developed an essay-based approach for teaching and evaluating Materials Science and Engineering, centered on the writing, and use of thematic essays, called The World of Materials. Each essay concentrates on one material only, and each essay is constructed around the four elements of materials science and engineering: structure, properties, processing and performance. However, each essay also contains relevant societal and historical information on the use and importance of that material. Where appropriate, biographical information on persons who are associated with that material is also included in the essay. The essays serve several functions in both college and high school including: 1. They may be used to teach Materials Science and Engineering through an in-depth description of particular materials (specificity) rather than by the traditional route, which de-emphasizes particular materials, but concentrates on particular concepts (generality). 2. The essays expose the entire class to a broad range of scientific concepts, related to the physics and chemistry of materials and minerals. 3. Students can be encouraged to develop their critical thinking ability through web-based and library searches. Students are also taught appropriate citation practices. 4. Students are taught some measure of scientific literacy. Student feedback is generally very positive. In particular, the students like the regular, biweekly deadlines, and the linkage between the essay components and the course structure INTRODUCTION There are numerous, excellent introductory materials science texts, which are directed at college-age students in science and engineering, (e.g., see refs. [1-4]). In particular, the twin volumes of Callister, [1, 2], have proved to be very popular at colleges and universities. The above-mentioned texts all describe the materials science tetrahedron, whose four vertices correspond to: processing, properties, performance and structure. Yet none of these texts truly follows the tetrahedral model. Recently, the current author has written a textbook, which is built around the materials science tetrahedron, but with the addition of a societal/historical theme ([5]). Figure 1 is a modified tetrahedron: it shows the four traditional elements of materials science, but all four are shown to be linked to the society that develops, processes and uses materials. In addition to the text, the author has developed a teaching tool and a related semesterlong writing project: The World of Materials essays. In the following sections, we shall explore the ideas behind these essays. I am appending an example of a student essay, completed as part of the requirements of the course, for the fall semester, 2004.
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PHILOSOPHY Traditional textbooks in Materials
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